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As it is St Patrick’s Day on Sunday, my friends from work and I decided to have a little green party last night (we pften have little themed parties, it makes working Friday nights bearable). My offering to the party was green velvet cupcakes. I googled green velvet cupcakes and couldn’t find a recipe that I liked, most of them used oil and I prefer butter for baking, I think the taste and texture are better when you use butter, so I adapted a red velvet cupcake recipe. The ingredients are

300g (2 cups) plain flour

30g (1/4 cup) cocoa powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

315g (1 1/2 cups) caster sugar

250ml (1 cup) buttermilk

200g unsalted butter, melted

2 eggs, lightly whisked

1 tbs white vinegar

1 bottle of green colouring

1 tsp vanilla

I didn’t have buttermilk so I made my own, to do this you add 2 tablespoons of vinegar to 1 cup of milk and allow it to sit for a few minutes. The recipe couldn’t be easier, you combine dry ingredients in one bowl, wisk wet together in another then add wet to dry and mix until just combined.

I was nervous about adding so much food colouring, but I just closed my eyes and poured! I mixed it well then filled my patty papers.

I baked them for about 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. I had seen on Pinterest an easy alternative to icing where you placed a marshmallow on the cupcakes a few minutes before taking them out of the oven so they melted. I wanted to try this so I put white marshmallows on half of the cup cakes.

Once they had cooled I iced the other half with just normal icing, I wanted it quite thick so I added a lot of icing mixture to a couple of spoons of butter and a splash of milk and piled it on top.

The ones at the top of the following picture are the ones with icing and the ones on the bottom are the marshmallow ones.

So, the verdict…..they are light and fluffy which is great, like their cousin the red velvet cup cake I find them lacking in the taste department. I have never understood the obsession with red velvet cakes I find their flavour to be non-descript, quite sweet and not nearly chocolately enough, this is easily fixed with the addition of more cocoa though. The marshmallow icing, although easy is not pretty enough for me, while flavour is the most vital aspect of baking I do also love great presentation. Also not being the biggest fan of marshmallow I found the flavour to be a little overpowering, but if you like marshmallow you will love this. I much prefer the taste of the more traditional icing.

These have not disappeared as quickly as my watermelon cupcakes disappeared the other week either, I think the colour is too daunting for everyone.

I can’t see these making it into the regular baking rotation, they aren’t a bad cake just not to my taste, but if you like red velvet give them a go, they do have a wonderful texture.